It's only normal if the tile installer was incompetent.

@Carrie B lol - so it should be completely flat across the top ? No drips where the grout is? Genuinely asking. I looked at my mother’s tiled bathroom and do notice lippage with her larger rectangle tilea but done notice on her smaller bathroom tiles

Stephanie - I'm not a pro, everything I know, I know from hanging around here. Here's some info about acceptable lippage: [Accpetable lippage. ](https://www.constructionspecifier.com/tile-and-stone-lippage-what-is-acceptable-and-how-do-you-specify-it/#:~:text=7%20(%E2%80%9CLippage%E2%88%92Guidelines%2C,plus%20the%20inherent%20tile%20warpage.)

Your installer lacked the right skills.

You should be able to slide a quarter (or a credit card) over the tiles without it 'catching' on the lip of a tile.

Hold on a minute.

According to ANSI A-3.3.7, lippage refers to differences in elevation between edges (or "lips") of adjacent tile modules. It is affected by the size and type of tile and the width of the grout joint. It is also affected by size differences (called the "caliber") in certain tiles. Rustic tiles, which often exhibit differences in thickness can produce a lot of lippage.

It is not the difference between grout and the adjacent tile. Grout does not have to be flush with the tile, so its not necessarily true that "[y]ou should be able to slide a quarter (or a credit card) over the tiles without it 'catching' on the lip of a tile." If the grout is pushed lower than the edge of the tile, which it is in may perfectly suitable installations, a credit card or quarter will catch on the lip of the tile. This test tells us nothing about lippage.

Some lippage is allowed by the ANSI standard. that varies by the size and type of tile, and the width of the grout joint. For most tiles lippage of 1/32" is the maximum allowed. For some tiles, such as quarry tiles, the allowable lippage is 1/16". Anything more pronounced is likely to be a trip and fall hazard and is usually not permitted.

@StarCraft Custom Builders -

Our tile is the same size & thickness. I’m not sure what else to call this difference in elevation I am noticing from my tiles. It very noticeable when you walk over them with bare feet. I placed a dime & quarter on them to show slope.

Some more photos

The grout line looks quite wide from these photos. So this is done usually to accommodate uneven sub flooring. Did you put new sub floor in?

@Flo Mangan — I’m not sure if they did new subfloor. This was installed while I was not here. I just know they took up the linoleum.

Many tiles have some bowing to them. It's logical to assume tiles are flat, but often they aren't. This is typically the problem rather than variation in tile thickness. There are ways to minimize the lippage if you do not have dead-flat tiles, but hexagonal tiles are a little more complicated. Nonetheless, I suspect the tile person simply laid them without trying to deal with the problem.

@starcustom craft builders

I appreciate your feedback. At first when I saw the tile job I thought I was being too picky with the variation of height in the tiles, and the uneven surface. However after posting here and on another page, I was told several times that it was a bad tile job, and began looking more closely. If I would have known that hexagon tiles tend to be uneven and not close to perfect causing me to definitely feel variation while walking I would have surely picked a new tile

Check the price of the job. The total tile job should include SEVERAL costs.

1. Removal of old flooring (sheet vinyl is NOTORIOUS for hiding bad/wonky subfloors...that's why builders LOVE IT!). This is often $2 - $3/sf (sheet vinyl should be $1.50 - $2.00/sf)

2. Subfloor preparation: I often tell clients to budget for $2-$5/sf (most are around $3/sf)

3. Cost of materials for subfloor prep: this can be $1-$2/sf

4. Cost of tile, thinset and grout (you will know the cost of the tile...then add $2/sf for the others)

5. Labour Costs: $10 - $12/sf (in economically depressed areas = $8 - 10/sf)

Whew. Lets add these up shall we?

$2 + $3 + ?? + $2 + $10 = $17/sf + tile costs

Check your invoice. Does it work out to be CLOSE to the $17/sf range? Or is it more like $12/sf???

The difference is the LACK of subfloor prep. Hex tiles can be laid beautifully. But the SUBFLOOR PREPARATION is CRUTIAL.

@SJ - so unfortunately we don’t have a price breakdown. We went through a designer & she has her contractors and gave us a price. The bathroom Reno total was around 1500$. This is tile, paint, shiplap wall, painting vanity & new fixtures . Bathroom is aprox 80sq ft

That to me seems low. I'm going to guess the subfloor wasn't touched. If you assume the tiled area is more like 50sf (cause the vanity and the tub take up some room. The LABOUR for the tile job is $600.

What was the cost of the tile per square foot? How much was ordered?

The final look of the project looks nice. For $1500 total job cost, the appearance is nice. The tile job may not be perfect but it is 'acceptable' for a project cost of $1500 (with 4 OTHER JOBS attached to the tile job).

Ask yourself how much do you want to pay to have this ripped out and to have someone else start over? It is very possible the remove-retile is going to be another $1000.

For $1500 (I'm a very lazy realist) I would shake hands and walk away and be content with the final product. For me, it would be 'good enough' for the excellent price point you were given.

Will you be using a couple rugs? The rugs will help mask this problem.

@SJ McCarthy -

I agree that it’s “ok”. And I am fine with dealing with this tile job due to the fact it is upstairs in a kids bath. However - I am worried now because these are the same people who are supposed to be demoing my master bath (removing tub- installing new tile shower- new tile floor etc) and I do not want a sub par job in there. They are supposed to come out to look at the floor before installing trim & fixtures and I will see what they have to say.
Now just to decide to still use them for the master bath. (I am going through a designer who uses a contractor / subs.)

This site is notorious for complaining about tile and countertop installs. They think every tile job should be done by an old world tile tradesman at a high price, and if you get less than stellar results, it’s unacceptable and you should tear it out and hire said old world tradesman.

$1500 is insanely cheap for your project list. That price reflects that you hired a low to midrange contractor who did a solidly middle of the road, acceptable job. Given how low the cost was, this project could have gone wildly wrong, and I think you should be perfectly content with your end product. As in, you got a probably better job than one might have expected given what you paid. That’s not an insult or jab at you not paying enough; there’s no reason or way for most of us to pay highly skilled tradesmen for everything. So for the rest of us, there’s some elements of risk tolerance that the project might turn out terribly, and needing to be okay if not happy with slightly less than perfect jobs.

OK...the SUBS are answerable to your Designer. Her Circus; her monkeys. Go DIRECTLY to her. She sent them out there, she's responsible for the quality of work.

Who wrote the quote? If it was the designer, you will need to have a polite word with her to EXPLAIN subfloor preparation for tiles. She either doesn't know, doesn't care or simply forgot to add in the quote.

Now that you have spoken with her and have explained your disappointment on the 'trial run' for the kids bath, you can explain that you EXPECT FULL PREPARATION of ALL SURFACES they will be touching.

Look at your contract and find out if the words "To NTCA Best Practices" as well as "To Building Code".

National Tile Contractors Association (tile-assn.com)

If it DOES NOT, you want the Designer to REWRITE the next part of the contract to INCLUDE the words AND THE EXTRA COSTS.

Yes. Extra costs. I guarantee the tile work, water proofing work, the wall work, the flood test, etc. will ALL COST MORE if they are done to all the specifications you EXPECT to happen.

You want the contract to be in place BEFORE the crew is allowed back onto your property.

Of course if the Designer balks at rewriting the ENTIRE contract (ahem...yep...more work for her = less money for her) then you reserve the right to end the contract.

@SJ

@H202

This is the reply I got from my designer. . .

“Ok just got off phone with Justin, he isn’t going to finish until we talk thru what your wanting him to do with floor his main objective was to look at it today , he says there is a hump in the floor that runs out into the carpet from the way it was framed area and he wouldn’t of notice unless he got down and majorly looked bc knowing it was there it’s more prevalent that you notice now bc tile is down and there are layers, his process was done properly tile board grout tile he said there could be two certain tiles that could come up to make it a better but not noticeable better but it’s not going to fixed the hump from framing and settling in the home.”

That’s something any competent tile person checks for and fixes before the tile goes down. When we retiled our master bath several years ago the tile went down on a concrete slab that seemed to be completely flat, but my tile guy insisted on putting on a thin layer of self leveling compound before he did anything.

The first thing any good tile person would do is verify subfloor. So this person even says he noticed “hump” but didn’t bring to your attention? If I was managing this as your designer, I would have brought this up based on my own observations and testing. You can’t just hand work over without great care. At least that’s what I try to do. You can’t catch everything but this seems pretty basic. Keep working, politely, toward acceptable resolution.

Just because the process followed was correct does NOT remove the duty of care the Designer and installer have to you. The 'hump' was found but not corrected by the installer. Nor was it communicated to the designer (ahem...the GC on this job). That's on the installer.

The Designer is NOT taking her responsibilities seriously and does NOT have control of her subcontractors. That's not a good sign. You talk to the designer and she talks to the installer.

You tell the installer the hump could have been dealt with by the installer (and about 1/4 of a day's worth of work). This could have been communicated to you and a cost evaluation accepted by all parties.

The designer has to reign this installer in for you. She put him on the job...she has to deal with your concerns and his quality.

The way to fix this: bring it down the subfloor and redo. The reason why the installer isn't moving forward with anything else is because they are FULLY AWARE they will lose serious money on this job and are willing to walk away - leaving you and the designer on the hook for his bad work.

Continue pushing for removal, correction of the subfloor (did ANYONE look at the deflection rating of the joist/subfloor??? PLEASE tell me SOMEONE did this!!!!) and then reinstallation of tiles (you have to pay for the subfloor prep because it needs to be paid for) with the designer taking it on the chin with everything else.

@SJ McCarthy- I’m sure no one looked at this. And you all three are correct and I explained that to my designer as well. That they noticed the hump in the floor- yet it wasn’t corrected or brought to my attention.
I also left a note for the contractor yesterday explaining to him my concerns, and put painters tape on different areas of the floor to show him my concerns (although I’m sure he didn’t need it)... we have a home video system & as I was checking it he is making remarks when he’s saying “oh yeah let me not forget to take my lovely little note” , and his subs are laughing about it. Not a very happy consumer when I have contractors in my home making fun. . . Once I explained this to the designer now they are suddenly “coming out today to speak with me”. Something I’ve asked for multiple times since the floor has been done & haven’t gotten the chance.

A quick question for clarity....just so we are on the same page.

Do you pay the contractor DIRECTLY or do you pay the DESIGNER directly? Who holds your contract?

JuneKnow is the only person making sense here. You paid $1500 for your entire bathroom renovation! Maybe $1000 of that was for tile (material and labor). Would it have been nice if your contractor (clearly not a tile expert at that price point) had pointed out this very minor bump in the floor? Sure. Is the end result within the realm of acceptable? Yes. At that price point, could you have ended up with much, much worse? Absolutely.

No non-tile professional would have raised this hump to your attention. It's just not big enough or problematic enough to justify the trouble to them of opening the can of worms. And any tile professional would have charged $3000-$4000 to lay a floor with new subfloor prep. Which i'm guessing you wouldn't have paid.

So you ended up doing really well here!

@juneknow @H202 — what are you comparing prices to? Different places in the country have different price ranges. We are in North Carolina so our estimates may be much lower than those say in New York. While I do believe that what we paid )which actually was $1800) is a fair price I received several quotes that were all in this range. So I don’t believe it was a low quote deserving a less than good job. If this job was going to be subpar I would have expected someone to have given me a quote that was much higher. Each person that I got quotes from or professionals. And I expected a professional job

Thank you for all the replies & opinions. The contractor removed 8 tiles & re laid them. He stated that apparently there are beams running through the middle of the bathroom floor & that if they “fixed” the subfloor anymore there would be too much of a gap between table carpet in the hall & threshold of the bathroom tile. . I feel better about the lippage of the tile now, although it is not completely perfect it’s much better. Now to just decide if we trust them enough to do a master.